Mark Twain, A Biography, 1875-86 by Albert Bigelow Paine

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to be reproduced by that process, or indeed unless some one of the latelydiscovered photographic processes was used. Furthermore, the latter weremuch cheaper, and it was to the advantage of Clemens himself to repudiatekaolatype, even for his own work.

Webster was ordered to wind up the last ends of the engraving businesswith as little sacrifice as possible, and attend entirely to moreprofitable affairs--viz., the distribution of books.

As literature, the Mississippi book will rank with Mark Twain's best--sofar, at least, as the first twenty chapters of it are concerned. Earlierin this history these have been sufficiently commented upon. Theyconstitute a literary memorial seemingly as enduring as the river itself.

Concerning the remaining chapters of the book, they are also literature,but of a different class. The difference is about the same as thatbetween 'A Tramp Abroad' and the 'Innocents'. It is the differencebetween the labors of love and duty; between art and industry, literatureand journalism.

But the last is hardly fair. It is journalism, but it is literaryjournalism, and there are unquestionably areas that are purely literary,and not journalistic at all. There would always be those in any book oftravel he might write. The story of the river revisited is aninteresting theme; and if the revisiting had been done, let us say eightor ten years earlier, before he had become a theoretical pessimist, andbefore the river itself had become a background for pessimism, the talemight have had more of the literary glamour and illusion, even if lessthat is otherwise valuable.

'Life on the Mississippi' has been always popular in Germany. TheEmperor William of Germany once assured Mark Twain that it was hisfavorite American book, and on the same evening the portier of theauthor's lodging in Berlin echoed the Emperor's opinion.

Paul Lindau, a distinguished German author and critic, in an interview atthe time the Mississippi book appeared, spoke of the general delight ofhis countrymen in its author. When he was asked, "But have not theGermans been offended by Mark Twain's strictures on their customs andlanguage in his Tramp Abroadf" he replied, "We know what we are and howwe look, and the fanciful picture presented to our eyes gives us onlyfood for laughter, not cause for resentment. The jokes he made on ourlong words, our inverted sentences, and the position of the verb havereally led to a reform in style which will end in making our language ascompact and crisp as the French or English. I regard Mark Twain as theforemost humorist of the age."

Howells, traveling through Europe, found Lindau's final sentiment echoedelsewhere, and he found something more: in Europe Mark Twain was alreadyhighly regarded as a serious writer. Thomas Hardy said to Howells onenight at dinner:

"Why don't people understand that Mark Twain is not merely a greathumorist? He is a very remarkable fellow in a very different way."

The Rev. Dr. Parker, returning from England just then, declared that,wherever he went among literary people, the talk was about Mark Twain;also that on two occasions, when he had ventured diffidently to say thathe knew that author personally, he was at once so evidently regarded aslying for effect that he felt guilty, and looked it, and did not ventureto say it any more; thus, in a manner, practising untruth to save hisreputation for veracity.

That the Mississippi book throughout did much to solidify this foreignopinion of Mark Twain's literary importance cannot be doubted, and it isone of his books that will live longest in the memory of men.

CXLIII

A GUEST OF ROYALTY

For purposes of copyright another trip to Canada was necessary, and whenthe newspapers announced (May, 1883) that Mark Twain was about to crossthe border there came one morning the following telegram:

Meeting of Literary and Scientific Society at Ottawa from 22d to 26th. It would give me much pleasure if you could come and be my guest during that time.

LORNE.

The Marquis of Lorne, then Governor-General of Canada, was the husband ofQueen Victoria's daughter, the Princess Louise. The invitation wastherefore in the nature of a command. Clemens obeyed it graciouslyenough, and with a feeling of exaltation no doubt. He had been honoredby the noble and the great in many lands, but this was royalty--Englishroyalty--paying a tribute to an American writer whom neither the Marquisnor the Princess, his wife, had ever seen. They had invited him becausethey had cared enough for his books to make them wish to see him, to havehim as a guest in Rideau Hall, their home. Mark Twain was democratic.A king to him was no more than any other man; rather less if he were nota good king. But there was something national in this tribute; and,besides, Lord Lorne and the Princess Louise were the kind of sovereignsthat honored their rank, instead of being honored by it.

It is a good deal like a fairy tale when you think of it; the barefootedboy of Hannibal, who had become a printer, a pilot, a rough-handed miner,being summoned, not so many years later, by royalty as one of America'sforemost men of letters. The honor was no greater than many others hehad received, certainly not greater than the calls of Canon Kingsley andRobert Browning and Turgenieff at his London hotel lodgings, but it wasof a less usual kind.

Clemens enjoyed his visit. Princess Louise and the Marquis of Lorne kepthim with them almost continually, and were loath to let him go. Oncethey took him tobogganing--an exciting experience.

It happened that during his stay with them the opening of the CanadianParliament took place. Lord Lorne and the principal dignitaries of stateentered one carriage, and in a carriage behind them followed PrincessLouise with Mark Twain. As they approached the Parliament House thecustomary salute was fired. Clemens pretended to the Princessconsiderable gratification. The temptation was too strong to resist:

"Your Highness," he said, "I have had other compliments paid to me, but none equal to this one. I have never before had a salute fired in my honor."

Returning to Hartford, he sent copies of his books to Lord Lorne, and tothe Princess a special copy of that absurd manual, The New Guide of theConversation in Portuguese and English, for which he had written anintroduction.--[A serious work, in Portugal, though issued by Osgood('83) as a joke. Clemens in the introduction says: "Its delicious,unconscious ridiculousness and its enchanting naivety are as supreme andunapproachable in their way as Shakespeare's sublimities." An extract,the closing paragraph from the book's preface, will illustrate hismeaning:

"We expect then, who the little book (for the care that we wrote him, andfor her typographical correction), that maybe worth the acceptation ofthe studious persons, and especially of the Youth, at which we dedicatehim particularly."]

CXLIV

A SUMMER LITERARY HARVEST

Arriving at the farm in June, Clemens had a fresh crop of ideas forstories of many lengths and varieties. His note-book of that time isfull of motifs and plots, most of them of that improbable and extravagantkind which tended to defeat any literary purpose, whether humorous orotherwise. It seems worth while setting down one or more of these here,for they are characteristic of the myriad conceptions that came and went,and beyond these written memoranda left no trace behind. Here is a fairexample of many:

Two men starving on a raft. The pauper has a Boston cracker, resolves to keep it till the multimillionaire is beginning to starve, then make him pay $50,000 for it. Millionaire agrees. Pauper's cupidity rises, resolves to wait and get more; twenty-four hours later asks him a million for the cracker. Millionaire agrees. Pauper has a wild dream of becoming enormously rich off his cracker; backs down; lies all night building castles in the air; next day raises his price higher and higher, till millionaire has offered $100,000,000, every cent he has in the world. Pauper accepts. Millionaire: "Now give it to me."

Pauper: "No; it isn't a trade until you sign documental history of the transaction and make an oath to pay."

While pauper is finishing the document millionaire sees a ship. When pauper says, "Sign and take the cracker," millionaire smiles a smile, declines, and points to the ship.

Yet this is hardly more extravagant than another idea that is mentionedrepeatedly among the notes--that of an otherwise penniless man wanderingabout London with a single million-pound bank-note in his possession, amotif which developed into a very good story indeed.

IDEA FOR "STORMFIELD'S VISIT TO HEAVEN"

In modern times the halls of heaven are warmed by registers connected with hell; and this is greatly applauded by Jonathan Edwards, Calvin, Baxter and Company, because it adds a new pang to the sinner's sufferings to know that the very fire which tortures him is the means of making the righteous comfortable.

Then there was to be another story, in which the various characters wereto have a weird, pestilential nomenclature; such as "Lockjaw Harris,""Influenza Smith," "Sinapism Davis," and a dozen or two more, a perfectoutbreak of disorders.

Another--probably the inspiration of some very hot afternoon--was topresent life in the interior of an iceberg, where a colony would live fora generation or two, drifting about in a vast circular current year afteryear, subsisting on polar bears and other Arctic game.

An idea which he followed out and completed was the 1002d Arabian Night,in which Scheherazade continues her stories, until she finally talks theSultan to death. That was a humorous idea, certainly; but when Howellscame home and read it in the usual way he declared that, while the opening was killingly funny, when he got into the story itself it seemedto him that he was "made a fellow-sufferer with the Sultan fromScheherazade's prolixity."

"On the whole," he said, "it is not your best, nor your second best; butall the way it skirts a certain kind of fun which you can't afford toindulge in."

And that was the truth. So the tale, neatly typewritten, retired toseclusion, and there remains to this day.

Clemens had one inspiration that summer which was not directly literary,but historical, due to his familiarity with English dates. He wroteTwichell:

Day before yesterday, feeling not in condition for writing, I left the study, but I couldn't hold in--had to do something; so I spent eight hours in the sun with a yardstick, measuring off the reigns of the English kings on the roads in these grounds, from William the Conqueror to 1883, calculating to invent an open-air game which shall fill the children's heads with dates without study. I give each king's reign one foot of space to the year and drive one stake in the ground to mark the beginning of each reign, and I make the children call the stake by the king's name. You can stand in the door and take a bird's-eye view of English monarchy, from the Conqueror to Edward IV.; then you can turn and follow the road up the hill to the study and beyond with an opera-glass, and bird's-eye view the rest of it to 1883.

You can mark the sharp difference in the length of reigns by the varying distances of the stakes apart. You can see Richard II., two feet; Oliver Cromwell, two feet; James II., three feet, and so on-- and then big skips; pegs standing forty-five, forty-six, fifty, fifty-six, and sixty feet apart (Elizabeth, Victoria, Edward III., Henry III., and George III.). By the way, third's a lucky number for length of days, isn't it? Yes, sir; by my scheme you get a realizing notion of the time occupied by reigns.

The reason it took me eight hours was because, with little Jean's interrupting assistance, I had to measure from the Conquest to the end of Henry VI. three times over, and besides I had to whittle out all those pegs.

I did a full day's work and a third over, yesterday, but was full of my game after I went to bed trying to fit it for indoors. So I didn't get to sleep till pretty late; but when I did go off I had contrived a new way to play my history game with cards and a board.

We may be sure the idea of the game would possess him, once it got a fairstart like that. He decided to save the human race that year with ahistory game. When he had got the children fairly going and interestedin playing it, he adapted it to a cribbage-board, and spent his days andnights working it out and perfecting it to a degree where the world atlarge might learn all the facts of all the histories, not only withouteffort, but with an actual hunger for chronology. He would have a gamenot only of the English kings, but of the kings of every other nation;likewise of great statesmen, vice-chancellors, churchmen, of celebritiesin every line. He would prepare a book to accompany these games. Eachgame would contain one thousand facts, while the book would contain eightthousand; it would be a veritable encyclopedia. He would organize clubsthroughout the United States for playing the game; prizes were to begiven. Experts would take it up. He foresaw a department in everynewspaper devoted to the game and its problems, instead of to chess andwhist and other useless diversions. He wrote to Orion, and set him towork gathering facts and dates by the bushel. He wrote to Webster, senthim a plan, and ordered him to apply for the patent without delay. Patents must also be applied for abroad. With all nations playing thisgreat game, very likely it would produce millions in royalties; and so,in the true Sellers fashion, the iridescent bubble was blown larger andlarger, until finally it blew up. The game on paper had become so large,so elaborate, so intricate, that no one could play it. Yet the firstidea was a good one: the king stakes driven along the driveway and up thehillside of Quarry Farm. The children enjoyed it, and played it throughmany sweet summer afternoons. Once, in the days when he had grown old,he wrote, remembering:

Among the principal merits of the games which we played by help of the pegs were these: that they had to be played in the open air, and that they compelled brisk exercise. The peg of William the Conqueror stood in front of the house; one could stand near the Conqueror and have all English history skeletonized and landmarked and mile-posted under his eye . . . . The eye has a good memory. Many years have gone by and the pegs have disappeared, but I still see them and each in its place; and no king's name falls upon my ear without my seeing his pegs at once, and noticing just how many feet of space he takes up along the road.

It turned out an important literary year after all. In the Mississippibook he had used a chapter from the story he had been working at fromtime to time for a number of years, 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'. Reading over the manuscript now he found his interest in it sharp andfresh, his inspiration renewed. The trip down the river had revived it. The interest in the game became quiescent, and he set to work to finishthe story at a dead heat.

To Howells, August 22 (1883), he wrote:

I have written eight or nine hundred manuscript pages in such a brief space of time that I mustn't name the number of days; I shouldn't believe it myself, and of course couldn't expect you to. I used to restrict myself to four and five hours a day and five days in the week, but this time I have wrought from breakfast till 5.15 P.M. six days in the week, and once or twice I smouched a Sunday when the boss wasn't looking. Nothing is half so good as literature hooked on Sunday, on the sly.

He refers to the game, though rather indifferently.

When I wrote you I thought I had it; whereas I was merely entering upon the initiatory difficulties of it. I might have known it wouldn't be an easy job or somebody would have invented a decent historical game long ago--a thing which nobody has done.

Notwithstanding the fact that he was working at Huck with enthusiasm, heseems to have been in no hurry to revise it for publication, either as aserial or as a book. But the fact that he persevered until Huck Finn atlast found complete utterance was of itself a sufficient matter forcongratulation.

CXLV

HOWELLS AND CLEMENS WRITE A PLAY

Before Howells went abroad Clemens had written:

Now I think that the play for you to write would be one entitled, "Colonel Mulberry Sellers in Age" (75), with Lafayette Hawkins (at 50) still sticking to him and believing in him and calling him "My lord." He [Sellers] is a specialist and a scientist in various ways. Your refined people and purity of speech would make the best possible background, and when you are done, I could take your manuscript and rewrite the Colonel's speeches, and make him properly extravagant, and I would let the play go to Raymond, and bind him up with a contract that would give him the bellyache every time he read it. Shall we think this over, or drop it as being nonsense?

Howells, returned and settled in Boston once more, had revived aninterest in the play idea. He corresponded with Clemens concerning itand agreed that the American Claimant, Leathers, should furnish theinitial impulse of the drama.

They decided to revive Colonel Sellers and make him the heir; ColonelSellers in old age, more wildly extravagant than ever, with new schemes,new patents, new methods of ameliorating the ills of mankind.

Howells came down to Hartford from Boston full of enthusiasm. He foundClemens with some ideas of the plan jotted down: certain effects andsituations which seemed to him amusing, but there was no general schemeof action. Howells, telling of it, says:

I felt authorized to make him observe that his scheme was as nearly nothing as chaos could be. He agreed hilariously with me, and was willing to let it stand in proof of his entire dramatic inability.

Howells, in turn, proposed a plan which Clemens approved, and they set towork. Howells could imitate Clemens's literary manner, and they had ariotously jubilant fortnight working out their humors. Howells has toldabout it in his book, and he once related it to the writer of thismemoir. He said:

"Clemens took one scene and I another. We had loads and loads of funabout it. We cracked our sides laughing over it as it went along. Wethought it mighty good, and I think to this day that it was mighty good. We called the play 'Colonel Sellers.' We revived him. Clemens had anotion of Sellers as a spiritual medium-there was a good deal ofexcitement about spiritualism then; he also had a notion of Sellersleading a women's temperance crusade. We conceived the idea of Sellerswanting to try, in the presence of the audience, how a man felt who hadfallen, through drink. Sellers was to end with a sort of corkscrewperformance on the stage. He always wore a marvelous fire extinguisher,one of his inventions, strapped on his back, so in any sudden emergency,he could give proof of its effectiveness."

In connection with the extinguisher, Howells provided Sellers with a pairof wings, which Sellers declared would enable him to float around in anyaltitude where the flames might break out. The extinguisher, was not tobe charged with water or any sort of liquid, but with Greek fire, on theprinciple that like cures like; in other words, the building was to beinoculated with Greek fire against the ordinary conflagration. Of coursethe whole thing was as absurd as possible, and, reading the oldmanuscript to-day, one is impressed with the roaring humor of some of thescenes, and with the wild extravagance of the farce motive, not whollywarranted by the previous character of Sellers, unless, indeed, he hadgone stark mad. It is, in fact, Sellers caricatured. The gentle, tenderside of Sellers--the best side--the side which Clemens and Howellsthemselves cared for most, is not there. Chapter III of Mark Twain'snovel, The American Claimant, contains a scene between Colonel Sellersand Washington Hawkins which presents the extravagance of the Colonel'smaterialization scheme. It is a modified version of one of the scenes inthe play, and is as amusing and unoffending as any.

The authors' rollicking joy in their work convinced them that they hadproduced a masterpiece for which the public in general, and the actors inparticular, were waiting. Howells went back to Boston tired out, butelate in the prospect of imminent fortune.

CXLVI

DISTINGUISHED VISITORS

Meantime, while Howells had been in Hartford working at the play withClemens, Matthew Arnold had arrived in Boston. On inquiring for Howells,at his home, the visitor was told that he had gone to see Mark Twain. Arnold was perhaps the only literary Englishman left who had not acceptedMark Twain at his larger value. He seemed surprised and said:

"Oh, but he doesn't like that sort of thing, does he?"

To which Mrs. Howells replied:

"He likes Mr. Clemens very much, and he thinks him one of the greatestmen he ever knew."

Arnold proceeded to Hartford to lecture, and one night Howells andClemens went to meet him at a reception. Says Howells:

While his hand laxly held mine in greeting I saw his eyes fixed intensely on the other side of the room. "Who--who in the world is that?" I looked and said, "Oh, that is Mark Twain." I do not remember just how their instant encounter was contrived by Arnold's wish; but I have the impression that they were not parted for long during the evening, and the next night Arnold, as if still under the glamour of that potent presence, was at Clemens's house.

He came there to dine with the Twichells and the Rev. Dr. Edwin P. Parker. Dr. Parker and Arnold left together, and, walking quietlyhomeward, discussed the remarkable creature whose presence they had justleft. Clemens had been at his best that night--at his humorous best. Hehad kept a perpetual gale of laughter going, with a string of comment andanecdote of a kind which Twichell once declared the world had neverbefore seen and would never see again. Arnold seemed dazed by it, unableto come out from under its influence. He repeated some of the things Mark Twain had said; thoughtfully, as if trying to analyze their magic. Then he asked solemnly:

"And is he never serious?"

And Dr. Parker as solemnly answered:

"Mr. Arnold, he is the most serious man in the world." Dr. Parker,recalling this incident, remembered also that Protap Chunder Mazoomdar, aHindoo Christian prelate of high rank, visited Hartford in 1883, and thathis one desire was to meet Mark Twain. In some memoranda of this visitDr. Parker has written:

I said that Mark Twain was a friend of mine, and we would immediately go to his house. He was all eagerness, and I perceived that I had risen greatly in this most refined and cultivated gentleman's estimation. Arriving at Mr. Clemens's residence, I promptly sought a brief private interview with my friend for his enlightenment concerning the distinguished visitor, after which they were introduced and spent a long while together. In due time Mazoomdar came forth with Mark's likeness and autograph, and as we walked away his whole air and manner seemed to say, with Simeon of old, "Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace!"

CXLVII

THE FORTUNES OF A PLAY

Howells is of the impression that the "Claimant" play had been offered toother actors before Raymond was made aware of it; but there are letters (to Webster) which indicate that Raymond was to see the play first,though Clemens declares, in a letter of instruction, that he hopesRaymond will not take it. Then he says:

Why do I offer him the play at all? For these reasons: he plays that character well; there are not thirty actors in the country who can do it better; and, too, he has a sort of sentimental right to be offered the piece, though no moral, or legal, or other kind of right.

Therefore we do offer it to him; but only once, not twice. Let us have no hemming and hawing; make short, sharp work of the business. I decline to have any correspondence with R. myself in any way.

This was at the end of November, 1883, while the play was still beingrevised. Negotiations with Raymond had already begun, though he does notappear to have actually seen the play during that theatrical season, andmany and various were the attempts made to place it elsewhere; alwayswith one result--that each actor or manager, in the end, declared it tobe strictly a Raymond play. The thing was hanging fire for nearly ayear, altogether, while they were waiting on Raymond, who had aprofitable play, and was in no hurry for the recrudescence of Sellers. Howells tells how he eventually took the manuscript to Raymond, whom hefound "in a mood of sweet reasonableness" at one of Osgood's luncheons. Raymond said he could not do the play then, but was sure he would like itfor the coming season, and in any case would be glad to read it.

In due time Raymond reported favorably on the play, at least so far asthe first act was concerned, but he objected to the materializationfeature and to Sellers as claimant for the English earldom. He askedthat these features be eliminated, or at least much ameliorated; but asthese constituted the backbone and purpose of the whole play, Clemens andHowells decided that what was left would be hardly worth while. Raymondfinally agreed to try the play as it was in one of the larger towns--Howells thinks in Buffalo. A week later the manuscript came back toWebster, who had general charge of the business negotiations, as indeedhe had of all Mark Twain's affairs at this time, and with it a briefline:

DEAR SIR,--I have just finished rereading the play, and am convinced that in its present form it would not prove successful. I return the manuscript by express to your address.

Thanking you for your courtesy, I am,

Yours truly, JOHN T. RAYMOND.

P.S.--If the play is altered and made longer I will be pleased to read it again.

In his former letter Raymond had declared that "Sellers, while a verysanguine man, was not a lunatic, and no one but a lunatic could for amoment imagine that he had done such a work" (meaning thematerialization). Clearly Raymond wanted a more serious presentation,something akin to his earlier success, and on the whole we can hardlyblame him. But the authors had faith in their performance as it stood,and agreed they would make no change.

Finally a well-known elocutionist, named Burbank, conceived the notion ofimpersonating Raymond as well as Sellers, making of it a sort of doubleburlesque, and agreed to take the play on those terms. Burbank came toHartford and showed what he could do. Howells and Clemens agreed to givehim the play, and they hired the old Lyceum Theater for a week, at sevenhundred dollars, for its trial presentation. Daniel Frohman promoted it. Clemens and Howells went over the play and made some changes, but theywere not as hilarious over it or as full of enthusiasm as they had beenin the beginning. Howells put in a night of suffering--long, dark hoursof hot and cold waves of fear--and rising next morning from a tossingbed, wrote: "Here's a play which every manager has put out-of-doors andwhich every actor known to us has refused, and now we go and give it toan elocutioner. We are fools."

Clemens hurried over to Boston to consult with Howells, and in the endthey agreed to pay the seven hundred dollars for the theater, take theplay off and give Burbank his freedom. But Clemens's faith in it did notimmediately die. Howells relinquished all right and title in it, andClemens started it out with Burbank and a traveling company, doing one-night stands, and kept it going for a week or more at his own expense. It never reached New York.

"And yet," says Howells, "I think now that if it had come it would havebeen successful. So hard does the faith of the unsuccessful dramatistdie."--[This was as late as the spring of 1886, at which time Howells'sfaith in the play was exceedingly shaky. In one letter he wrote: "It isa lunatic that we have created, and while a lunatic in one act mightamuse, I'm afraid that in three he would simply bore."

And again:

"As it stands, I believe the thing will fail, and it would be a disgraceto have it succeed."]

CXLVIII

CABLE AND HIS GREAT JOKE

Meanwhile, with the completion of the Sellers play Clemens had flunghimself into dramatic writing once more with a new and more violentimpetuosity than ever. Howells had hardly returned to Boston when hewrote:

Now let's write a tragedy.

The inclosed is not fancy, it is history; except that the little girl wasa passing stranger, and not kin to any of the parties. I read theincident in Carlyle's Cromwell a year ago, and made a note in my note-book; stumbled on the note to-day, and wrote up the closing scene of apossible tragedy, to see how it might work.

If we made this colonel a grand fellow, and gave him a wife to suit--hey? It's right in the big historical times--war; Cromwell in big, picturesquepower, and all that.

Come, let's do this tragedy, and do it well. Curious, but didn'tFlorence want a Cromwell? But Cromwell would not be the chief figurehere.

It was the closing scene of that pathetic passage in history from whichhe would later make his story, "The Death Disc." Howells was too tiredand too occupied to undertake immediately a new dramatic labor, soClemens went steaming ahead alone.

My billiard-table is stacked up with books relating to the Sandwich Islands; the walls are upholstered with scraps of paper penciled with notes drawn from them. I have saturated myself with knowledge of that unimaginably beautiful land and that most strange and fascinating people. And I have begun a story. Its hidden motive will illustrate a but-little considered fact in human nature: that the religious folly you are born in you will die in, no matter what apparently reasonabler religious folly may seem to have taken its place; meanwhile abolished and obliterated it. I start Bill Ragsdale at eleven years of age, and the heroine at four, in the midst of the ancient idolatrous system, with its picturesque and amazing customs and superstitions, three months before the arrival of the missionaries and--the erection of a shallow Christianity upon the ruins of the old paganism.

Then these two will become educated Christians and highly civilized.

And then I will jump fifteen years and do Ragsdale's leper business. When we come to dramatize, we can draw a deal of matter from the story, all ready to our hand.

He made elaborate preparations for the Sandwich Islands story, which heand Howells would dramatize later, and within the space of a few weeks heactually did dramatize 'The Prince and the Pauper' and 'Tom Sawyer', andwas prodding Webster to find proper actors or managers; stipulating atfirst severe and arbitrary terms, which were gradually modified, as oneafter another of the prospective customers found these dramatic waresunsuited to their needs. Mark Twain was one of the most dramaticcreatures that ever lived, but he lacked the faculty of stage arrangementof the dramatic idea. It is one of the commonest defects in the literarymake-up; also one of the hardest to realize and to explain.

The winter of 1883-84 was a gay one in the Clemens home. Henry Irvingwas among those entertained, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Aldrich and hiswife, Howells of course, and George W. Cable. Cable had now permanentlyleft the South for the promised land which all authors of the South andWest seek eventually, and had in due course made his way to Hartford. Clemens took Cable's fortunes in hand, as he had done with many another,invited him to his home, and undertook to open negotiations with theAmerican Publishing Company, of which Frank Bliss was now the manager,for the improvement of his fortunes.

Cable had been giving readings from his stories and had somewhere pickedup the measles. He suddenly came down with the complaint during hisvisit to Clemens, and his case was a violent one. It required theconstant attendance of a trained nurse and one or two members of thehousehold to pull him through.

In the course of time he was convalescent, and when contagion was nolonger to be feared guests were invited in for his entertainment. At oneof these gatherings, Cable produced a curious book, which he said hadbeen lent to him by Prof. Francis Bacon, of New Haven, as a great rarity. It was a little privately printed pamphlet written by a Southern youth,named S. Watson Wolston, a Yale student of 1845, and was an absurdromance of the hyperflorid, grandiloquent sort, entitled, "LoveTriumphant, or the Enemy Conquered." Its heroine's name was Ambulinia,and its flowery, half-meaningless periods and impossible situationsdelighted Clemens beyond measure. He begged Cable to lend it to him, toread at the Saturday Morning Club, declaring that he certainly must ownthe book, at whatever cost. Henry C. Robinson, who was present,remembered having seen a copy in his youth, and Twichell thought herecalled such a book on sale in New Haven during his college days. Twichell said nothing as to any purpose in the matter; but somewhatlater, being in New Haven, he stepped into the old book-store and foundthe same proprietor, who remembered very well the book and its author. Twichell rather fearfully asked if by any chance a copy of it might stillbe obtained.

"Well," was the answer, "I undertook to put my cellar in order the otherday, and found about a cord of them down there. I think I can supplyyou."

Twichell took home six of the books at ten cents each, and on their firstspring walk to Talcott's Tower casually mentioned to Clemens the questfor the rare Ambulinia. But Clemens had given up the pursuit. New Yorkdealers had reported no success in the matter. The book was no longer inexistence.

"What would you give for a copy?" asked. Twichell.

Clemens became excited.

"It isn't a question of price," he said; "that would be for the owner toset if I could find him."

Twichell drew a little package from his pocket.

"Well, Mark," he said, "here are six copies of that book, to begin with. If that isn't enough, I can get you a wagon-load."

It was enough. But it did not deter Clemens in his purpose, which was toimmortalize the little book by pointing out its peculiar charms. He didthis later, and eventually included the entire story, with comments, inone of his own volumes.

Clemens and Twichell did not always walk that spring. The early form ofbicycle, the prehistoric high-wheel, had come into vogue, and they eachgot one and attempted its conquest. They practised in the early morninghours on Farmington Avenue, which was wide and smooth, and they had aninstructor, a young German, who, after a morning or two, regarded MarkTwain helplessly and said:

"Mr. Clemens, it's remarkable--you can fall off of a bicycle moredifferent ways than the man that invented it."

They were curious things, those old high-wheel machines. You wereperched away up in the air, with the feeling that you were likely at anymoment to strike a pebble or something that would fling you forward withdamaging results. Frequently that is what happened. The word "header"seems to have grown out of that early bicycling period. Perhaps MarkTwain invented it. He had enough experience to do it. He alwaysdeclared afterward that he invented all the new bicycle profanity thathas since come into general use. Once he wrote:

There was a row of low stepping-stones across one end of the street, a measured yard apart. Even after I got so I could steer pretty fairly I was so afraid of those stones that I always hit them. They gave me the worst falls I ever got in that street, except those which I got from dogs. I have seen it stated that no expert is quick enough to run over a dog; that a dog is always able to skip out of his way. I think that that may be true; but I think that the reason he couldn't run over the dog was because he was trying to. I did not try to run over any dog. But I ran over every dog that came along. I think it makes a great deal of difference. If you try to run over the dog he knows how to calculate, but if you are trying to miss him he does not know how to calculate, and is liable to jump the wrong way every time. It was always so in my experience. Even when I could not hit a wagon I could hit a dog that came to see me practise. They all liked to see me practise, and they all came, for there was very little going on in our neighborhood to entertain a dog.

He conquered, measurably, that old, discouraging thing, and he andTwichell would go on excursions, sometimes as far as Wethersfield or tothe tower. It was a pleasant change, at least it was an interesting one;but bicycling on the high wheel was never a popular diversion with MarkTwain, and his enthusiasm in the sport had died before the "safety" camealong.

He had his machine sent out to Elmira, but there were too many hills inChemung County, and after one brief excursion he came in, limping andpushing his wheel, and did not try it again.

To return to Cable. When the 1st of April (1884) approached he concludedit would be a good time to pay off his debt of gratitude for his recententertainment in the Clemens's home. He went to work at itsystematically. He had a "private and confidential" circular letterprinted, and he mailed it to one hundred and fifty of Mark Twain'sliterary friends in Boston, Hartford, Springfield, New York, Brooklyn,Washington, and elsewhere, suggesting that they write to him, so thattheir letters would reach him simultaneously April 1st, asking for hisautograph. No stamps or cards were to be inclosed for reply, and it wasrequested that "no stranger to Mr. Clemens and no minor" should takepart. Mrs. Clemens was let into the secret, so that she would see to itthat her husband did not reject his mail or commit it to the flamesunopened.

It would seem that every one receiving the invitation must have respondedto it, for on the morning of April 1st a stupefying mass of letters wasunloaded on Mark Twain's table. He did not know what to make of it, andMrs. Clemens stood off to watch the results. The first one he opened wasfrom Dean Sage, a friend whom he valued highly. Sage wrote fromBrooklyn:

DEAR CLEMENS,--I have recently been asked by a young lady who unfortunately has a mania for autograph-collecting, but otherwise is a charming character, and comely enough to suit your fastidious taste, to secure for her the sign manual of the few distinguished persons fortunate enough to have my acquaintance. In enumerating them to her, after mentioning the names of Geo. Shepard Page, Joe Michell, Capt. Isaiah Ryndus, Mr. Willard, Dan Mace, and J. L. Sullivan, I came to yours. "Oh!" said she, "I have read all his works--Little Breeches, The Heathen Chinee, and the rest--and think them delightful. Do oblige me by asking him for his autograph, preceded by any little sentiment that may occur to him, provided it is not too short."

Of course I promised, and hope you will oblige me by sending some little thing addressed to Miss Oakes.

We are all pretty well at home just now, though indisposition has been among us for the past fortnight. With regards to Mrs. Clemens and the children, in which my wife joins,

Yours truly, DEAN SAGE.

It amused and rather surprised him, and it fooled him completely; butwhen he picked up a letter from Brander Matthews, asking, in some absurdfashion, for his signature, and another from Ellen Terry, and fromIrving, and from Stedman, and from Warner, and Waring, and H. C. Bunner,and Sarony, and Laurence Hutton, and John Hay, and R. U. Johnson, andModjeska, the size and quality of the joke began to overawe him. He wasdelighted, of course; for really it was a fine compliment, in its way,and most of the letters were distinctly amusing. Some of them asked forautographs by the yard, some by the pound. Henry Irving said:

I have just got back from a very late rehearsal-five o'clock--very tired--but there will be no rest till I get your autograph.

Some requested him to sit down and copy a few chapters from The InnocentsAbroad for them or to send an original manuscript. Others requested thathis autograph be attached to a check of interesting size. John Haysuggested that he copy a hymn, a few hundred lines of Young's "NightThoughts," and an equal amount of Pollak's "Course of Time."

I want my boy to form a taste for serious and elevated poetry, and it will add considerable commercial value to have them in your handwriting.

Altogether the reading of the letters gave him a delightful day, and hisadmiration for Cable grew accordingly. Cable, too, was pleased with thesuccess of his joke, though he declared he would never risk such a thingagain. A newspaper of the time reports him as saying:

I never suffered so much agony as for a few days previous to the 1st of April. I was afraid the letters would reach Mark when he was in affliction, in which case all of us would never have ceased flying to make it up to him. When I visited Mark we used to open our budgets of letters together at breakfast. We used to sing out whenever we struck an autograph- hunter. I think the idea came from that. The first person I spoke to about it was Robert Underwood Johnson, of the Century. My most enthusiastic ally was the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher. We never thought it would get into the papers. I never played a practical joke before. I never will again, certainly.

Mark Twain in those days did not encourage the regular autograph-collectors, and seldom paid any attention to their requests for hissignature. He changed all this in later years, and kept a supply alwayson hand to satisfy every request; but in those earlier days he had nopatience with collecting fads, and it required a particularly pleasingapplication to obtain his signature.

CXLIX

MARK TWAIN IN BUSINESS

Samuel Clemens by this time was definitely engaged in the publishingbusiness. Webster had a complete office with assistants at 658 Broadway,and had acquired a pretty thorough and practical knowledge ofsubscription publishing. He was a busy, industrious young man,tirelessly energetic, and with a good deal of confidence, by no meansunnecessary to commercial success. He placed this mental and physicalcapital against Mark Twain's inspiration and financial backing, and thecombination of Charles L. Webster & Co. seemed likely to be a strongone.

Already, in the spring of 1884., Webster had the new Mark Twain book,'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn', well in hand, and was on the watchfor promising subscription books by other authors. Clemens, with hisusual business vision and eye for results, with a generous disregard ofdetail, was supervising the larger preliminaries, and fulminating at thepetty distractions and difficulties as they came along. Certain plays hewas trying to place were enough to keep him pretty thoroughly upsetduring this period, and proof-reading never added to his happiness. ToHowells he wrote:

My days are given up to cursings, both loud and deep, for I am reading the 'Huck Finn' proofs. They don't make a very great many mistakes, but those that do occur are of a nature that make a man swear his teeth loose.

Whereupon Howells promptly wrote him that he would help him out with theHuck Finn proofs for the pleasure of reading the story. Clemens, amongother things, was trying to place a patent grape-scissors, invented byHowells's father, so that there was, in some degree, an equivalent forthe heavy obligation. That it was a heavy one we gather from his ferventacknowledgment:

It took my breath away, and I haven't recovered it yet, entirely--I mean the generosity of your proposal to read the proofs of Huck Finn.

Now, if you mean it, old man--if you are in earnest-proceed, in God's name, and be by me forever blessed. I can't conceive of a rational man deliberately piling such an atrocious job upon himself. But if there be such a man, and you be that man, pile it on. The proof-reading of 'The Prince and the Pauper' cost me the last rags of my religion.

Clemens decided to have the Huckleberry Finn book illustrated after hisown ideas. He looked through the various comic papers to see if he couldfind the work of some new man that appealed to his fancy. In the pagesof Life he discovered some comic pictures illustrating the possibility ofapplying electrical burners to messenger boys, waiters, etc. The styleand the spirit of these things amused him. He instructed Webster to lookup the artist, who proved to be a young man, E. W. Kemble by name, laterone of our foremost cartoonists. Webster engaged Kemble and put themanuscript in his hands. Through the publication of certain chapters ofHuck Finn in the Century Magazine, Kemble was brought to the notice ofits editors, who wrote Clemens that they were profoundly indebted to himfor unearthing "such a gem of an illustrator."

Clemens, encouraged and full of enthusiasm, now endeavored to interesthimself in the practical details of manufacture, but his stock ofpatience was light and the details were many. His early business periodresembles, in some of its features, his mining experience in Esmeralda,his letters to Webster being not unlike those to Orion in that formerday. They are much oftener gentle, considerate, even apologetic, butthey are occasionally terse, arbitrary, and profane. It required effortfor him to be entirely calm in his business correspondence. A criticismof one of Webster's assistants will serve as an example of his less quietmethod:

Charley, your proof-reader, is an idiot; and not only an idiot, but blind; and not only blind, but partly dead.

Of course, one must regard many of Mark Twain's business aspectshumorously. To consider them otherwise is to place him in a false lightaltogether. He wore himself out with his anxieties and irritations; butthat even he, in the midst of his furies, saw the humor of it all issufficiently evidenced by the form of his savage phrasing. There werefew things that did not amuse him, and certainly nothing amused more, oroftener, than himself.

It is proper to add a detail in evidence of a business soundness which hesometimes manifested. He had observed the methods of Bliss and Osgood,and had drawn his conclusions. In the beginning of the Huck Finn canvasshe wrote Webster:

Keep it diligently in mind that we don't issue till we have made a big sale.

Get at your canvassing early and drive it with all your might, with an intent and purpose of issuing on the 1oth or 15th of next December (the best time in the year to tumble a big pile into the trade); but if we haven't 40,000 subscriptions we simply postpone publication till we've got them. It is a plain, simple policy, and would have saved both of my last books if it had been followed. [That is to say, 'The Prince and the Pauper' and the Mississippi book, neither of which had sold up to his expectations on the, initial canvass.]

CL

FARM PICTURES

Gerhardt returned from Paris that summer, after three years of study, aqualified sculptor. He was prepared to take commissions, and came toElmira to model a bust of his benefactor. The work was finished afterfour or five weeks of hard effort and pronounced admirable; but Gerhardt,attempting to make a cast one morning, ruined it completely. The familygathered round the disaster, which to them seemed final, but the sculptorwent immediately to work, and in an amazingly brief time executed a newbust even better than the first, an excellent piece of modeling and afine likeness. It was decided that a cut of it should be used as afrontispiece for the new book, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

Clemens was at this time giving the final readings to the Huck Finnpages, a labor in which Mrs. Clemens and the children materiallyassisted. In the childish biography which Susy began of her father, ayear later, she says:

Ever since papa and mama were married papa has written his books and then taken them to mama in manuscript, and she has expurgated-- [Susy's spelling is preserved]--them. Papa read Huckleberry Finn to us in manuscript,--[Probably meaning proof.]--just before it came out, and then he would leave parts of it with mama to expurgate, while he went off to the study to work, and sometimes Clara and I would be sitting with mama while she was looking the manuscript over, and I remember so well, with what pangs of regret we used to see her turn down the leaves of the pages, which meant that some delightfully terrible part must be scratched out. And I remember one part pertickularly which was perfectly fascinating it was so terrible, that Clara and I used to delight in and oh, with what despair we saw mama turn down the leaf on which it was written, we thought the book would almost be ruined without it. But we gradually came to think as mama did.

Commenting on this phase of Huck's evolution Mark Twain has sincewritten:

I remember the special case mentioned by Susy, and can see the group yet--two-thirds of it pleading for the life of the culprit sentence that was so fascinatingly dreadful, and the other third of it patiently explaining why the court could not grant the prayer of the pleaders; but I do not remember what the condemned phrase was. It had much company, and they all went to the gallows; but it is possible that that especially dreadful one which gave those little people so much delight was cunningly devised and put into the book for just that function, and not with any hope or expectation that it would get by the "expergator" alive. It is possible, for I had that custom.

Little Jean was probably too youthful yet to take part in that literaryarbitration. She was four, and had more interest in cows. In somememoranda which her father kept of that period--the "Children's Book"--hesays:

She goes out to the barn with one of us every evening toward six o'clock, to look at the cows--which she adores--no weaker word can express her feeling for them. She sits rapt and contented while David milks the three, making a remark now and then--always about the cows. The time passes slowly and drearily for her attendant, but not for her. She could stand a week of it. When the milking is finished, and "Blanche," "Jean," and "the cross cow" are turned into the adjoining little cow-lot, we have to set Jean on a shed in that lot, and stay by her half an hour, till Eliza, the German nurse, comes to take her to bed. The cows merely stand there, and do nothing; yet the mere sight of them is all-sufficient for Jean. She requires nothing more. The other evening, after contemplating them a long time, as they stood in the muddy muck chewing the cud, she said, with deep and reverent appreciation, "Ain't this a sweet little garden?"

Yesterday evening our cows (after being inspected and worshiped by Jean from the shed for an hour) wandered off down into the pasture and left her bereft. I thought I was going to get back home, now, but that was an error. Jean knew of some more cows in a field somewhere, and took my hand and led me thitherward. When we turned the corner and took the right-hand road, I saw that we should presently be out of range of call and sight; so I began to argue against continuing the expedition, and Jean began to argue in favor of it, she using English for light skirmishing and German for "business." I kept up my end with vigor, and demolished her arguments in detail, one after the other, till I judged I had her about cornered. She hesitated a moment, then answered up, sharply:

It nearly took my breath away, though I thought I might possibly have misunderstood. I said:

"Why, you little rascal! Was hast du gesagt?"

But she said the same words over again, and in the same decided way. I suppose I ought to have been outraged, but I wasn't; I was charmed.

His own note-books of that summer are as full as usual, but there arefewer literary ideas and more philosophies. There was an excitement,just then, about the trichina germ in pork, and one of his memorandasays:

I think we are only the microscopic trichina concealed in the blood of some vast creature's veins, and that it is that vast creature whom God concerns himself about and not us.

And there is another which says:

People, in trying to justify eternity, say we can put it in by learning all the knowledge acquired by the inhabitants of the myriads of stars. We sha'n't need that. We could use up two eternities in learning all that is to be learned about our own world, and the thousands of nations that have risen, and flourished, and vanished from it. Mathematics alone would occupy me eight million years.

He records an incident which he related more fully in a letter toHowells:

Before I forget it I must tell you that Mrs. Clemens has said a bright thing. A drop-letter came to me asking me to lecture here for a church debt. I began to rage over the exceedingly cool wording of the request, when Mrs. Clemens said: "I think I know that church, and, if so, this preacher is a colored man; he doesn't know how to write a polished letter. How should he?"

My manner changed so suddenly and so radically that Mrs. C. said: "I will give you a motto, and it will be useful to you if you will adopt it: 'Consider every man colored till he is proved white.'"

It is dern good, I think.

One of the note-books contains these entries:

Talking last night about home matters, I said, "I wish I had said to George when we were leaving home, 'Now, George, I wish you would take advantage of these three or four months' idle time while I am away----'"

"To learn to let my matches alone," interrupted Livy. The very words I was going to use. Yet George had not been mentioned before, nor his peculiarities.

Several years ago I said:

"Suppose I should live to be ninety-two, and just as I was dying a messenger should enter and say----"

"You are become Earl of Durham," interrupted Livy. The very words I was going to utter. Yet there had not been a word said about the earl, or any other person, nor had there been any conversation calculated to suggest any such subject.

CLI

MARK TWAIN MUGWUMPS

The Republican Presidential nomination of James G. Blaine resulted in apolitical revolt such as the nation had not known. Blaine was immenselypopular, but he had many enemies in his own party. There were strongsuspicions of his being connected with doubtful financiering-enterprises,more or less sensitive to official influence, and while these scandalshad become quieted a very large portion of the Republican constituencyrefused to believe them unjustified. What might be termed theintellectual element of Republicanism was against Blame: George WilliamCurtis, Charles Dudley Warner, James Russell Lowell, Henry Ward Beecher,Thomas Nast, the firm of Harper & Brothers, Joseph W. Hawley, JosephTwichell, Mark Twain--in fact the majority of thinking men who heldprinciple above party in their choice.

On the day of the Chicago nomination, Henry C. Robinson, Charles E. Perkins, Edward M. Bunce, F. G. Whitmore, and Samuel C. Dunham werecollected with Mark Twain in his billiard-room, taking turns at the gameand discussing the political situation, with George, the colored butler,at the telephone down-stairs to report the returns as they came in. Asfast as the ballot was received at the political headquarters down-town,it was telephoned up to the house and George reported it through thespeaking-tube.

The opposition to Blaine in the convention was so strong that no one ofthe assembled players seriously expected his nomination. What was theiramazement, then, when about mid-afternoon George suddenly announcedthrough the speaking-tube that Blaine was the nominee. The butts of thebilliard cues came down on the floor with a bump, and for a moment theplayers were speechless. Then Henry Robinson said:

"It's hard luck to have to vote for that man."

Clemens looked at him under his heavy brows.

"But--we don't--have to vote for him," he said.

"Do you mean to say that you're not going to vote for him?"

"Yes, that is what I mean to say. I am not going to vote for him."

There was a general protest. Most of those assembled declared that whena party's representatives chose a man one must stand by him. They mightchoose unwisely, but the party support must be maintained. Clemens said:

"No party holds the privilege of dictating to me how I shall vote. Ifloyalty to party is a form of patriotism, I am no patriot. If there isany valuable difference between a monarchist and an American, it lies inthe theory that the American can decide for himself what is patriotic andwhat isn't. I claim that difference. I am the only person in the sixtymillions that is privileged to dictate my patriotism."

There was a good deal of talk back and forth, and, in the end, most ofthose there present remained loyal to Blaine. General Hawley and hispaper stood by Blaine. Warner withdrew from his editorship of theCourant and remained neutral. Twichell stood with Clemens and came nearlosing his pulpit by it. Open letters were published in the newspapersabout him. It was a campaign when politics divided neighbors, families,and congregations. If we except the Civil War period, there never hadbeen a more rancorous political warfare than that waged between theparties of James G. Blaine and Grover Cleveland in 1884.

That Howells remained true to Blaine was a grief to Clemens. He had goneto the farm with Howells on his political conscience and had writtenfervent and imploring letters on the subject. As late as September 17th,he said:

Somehow I can't seem to rest quiet under the idea of your voting for Blaine. I believe you said something about the country and the party. Certainly allegiance to these is well, but certainly a man's first duty is to his own conscience and honor; the party and country come second to that, and never first. I don't ask you to vote at all. I only urge you not to soil yourself by voting for Blaine.... Don't be offended; I mean no offense. I am not concerned about the rest of the nation, but well, good-by. Yours ever, MARK.

Beyond his prayerful letters to Howells, Clemens did not greatly concernhimself with politics on the farm, but, returning to Hartford, he wentvigorously into the campaign, presided, as usual, at mass-meetings, andmade political speeches which invited the laughter of both parties, andwere universally quoted and printed without regard to the paper'sconvictions.

It was during one such speech as this that, in the course of his remarks,a band outside came marching by playing patriotic music so loudly as todrown his voice. He waited till the band got by, but by the time he waswell under way again another band passed, and once more he was obliged towait till the music died away in the distance. Then he said, quiteserenely:

"You will find my speech, without the music, in the morning paper."

In introducing Carl Schurz at a great mugwump mass-meeting at Hartford,October 20, 1884., he remarked that he [Clemens] was the onlylegitimately elected officer, and was expected to read a long list ofvice-presidents; but he had forgotten all about it, and he would ask allthe gentlemen there, of whatever political complexion, to do him a greatfavor by acting as vice-presidents. Then he said:

As far as my own political change of heart is concerned, I have not been convinced by any Democratic means. The opinion I hold of Mr. Blaine is due to the comments of the Republican press before the nomination. Not that they have said bitter or scandalous things, because Republican papers are above that, but the things they said did not seem to be complimentary, and seemed to me to imply editorial disapproval of Mr. Blame and the belief that he was not qualified to be President of the United States.

It is just a little indelicate for me to be here on this occasion before an assemblage of voters, for the reason that the ablest newspaper in Colorado--the ablest newspaper in the world--has recently nominated me for President. It is hardly fit for me to preside at a discussion of the brother candidate, but the best among us will do the most repulsive things the moment we are smitten with a Presidential madness. If I had realized that this canvass was to turn on the candidate's private character I would have started that Colorado paper sooner. I know the crimes that can be imputed and proved against me can be told on the fingers of your hands. This cannot be said of any other Presidential candidate in the field.

Inasmuch as the Blaine-Cleveland campaign was essentially a campaign ofscurrility, this touch was loudly applauded.

Mark Twain voted for Grover Cleveland, though up to the very eve ofelection he was ready to support a Republican nominee in whom he hadfaith, preferably Edmunds, and he tried to inaugurate a movement by whichEdmunds might be nominated as a surprise candidate and sweep the country.

It was probably Dr. Burchard's ill-advised utterance concerning the threealleged R's of Democracy, "Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion," that defeatedBlaine, and by some strange, occult means Mark Twain's butler George gotwind of this damning speech before it became news on the streets ofHartford. George had gone with his party, and had a considerable sum ofmoney wagered on Blaine's election; but he knew it was likely to be veryclose, and he had an instant and deep conviction that these three fatalwords and Blaine's failure to repudiate them meant the candidate'sdownfall. He immediately abandoned everything in the shape of householdduties, and within the briefest possible time had changed enough money tomake him safe, and leave him a good margin of winnings besides, in theevent of Blame's defeat. This was evening. A very little later the newsof Blaine's blunder, announced from the opera-house stage, was like theexplosion of a bomb. But it was no news to George, who went homerejoicing with his enemies.

CLII

PLATFORMING WITH CABLE

The drain of many investments and the establishment of a publishing househad told heavily on Clemens's finances. It became desirable to earn alarge sum of money with as much expedition as possible. Authors'readings had become popular, and Clemens had read in Philadelphia andBoston with satisfactory results. He now conceived the idea of a grandtour of authors as a commercial enterprise. He proposed to Aldrich,Howells, and Cable that he charter a private car for the purpose, andthat with their own housekeeping arrangements, cooking, etc., they couldgo swinging around the circuit, reaping, a golden harvest. He offered tobe general manager of the expedition, the impresario as it were, andagreed to guarantee the others not less than seventy-five dollars a dayapiece as their net return from the "circus," as he called it.

Howells and Aldrich liked well enough to consider it as an amusingprospect, but only Cable was willing to realize it. He had been scouringthe country on his own account, and he was willing enough to join forceswith Mark Twain.

Clemens detested platforming, but the idea of reading from his books ormanuscript for some reason seemed less objectionable, and, as alreadystated, the need of much money had become important.

He arranged with J. B. Pond for the business side of the expedition,though in reality he was its proprietor. The private-car idea was givenup, but he employed Cable at a salary of four hundred and fifty dollars aweek and expenses, and he paid Pond a commission. Perhaps, without goingany further, we may say that the tour was a financial success, andyielded a large return of the needed funds.

Clemens and Cable had a pleasant enough time, and had it not been for theabsence from home and the disagreeableness of railway travel, there wouldhave been little to regret. They were a curiously associated pair. Cable was orthodox in his religion, devoted to Sunday-school, Biblereading, and church affairs in general. Clemens--well, Clemens wasdifferent. On the first evening of their tour, when the latter wascomfortably settled in bed with an entertaining book, Cable appeared withhis Bible, and proceeded to read a chapter aloud. Clemens made nocomment, and this went on for an evening or two more. Then he said:

"See here, Cable, we'll have to cut this part of the program out. Youcan read the Bible as much as you please so long as you don't read it tome."

Cable retired courteously. He had a keen sense of humor, and most thingsthat Mark Twain did, whether he approved or not, amused him. Cable didnot smoke, but he seemed always to prefer the smoking compartment whenthey traveled, to the more respectable portions of the car. One dayClemens sand to him:

"Cable, why do you sit in here? You don't smoke, and you know I alwayssmoke, and sometimes swear."

Cable said, "I know, Mark, I don't do these things, but I can't helpadmiring the way you do them."

When Sunday came it was Mark Twain's great happiness to stay in bed allday, resting after his week of labor; but Cable would rise, bright andchipper, dress himself in neat and suitable attire, and visit the variouschurches and Sunday-schools in town, usually making a brief address ateach, being always invited to do so.

It seems worth while to include one of the Clemens-Cable programs here--a most satisfactory one. They varied it on occasion, and when they weretwo nights in a place changed it completely, but the program here givenwas the one they were likely to use after they had proved its worth:

At a Mark Twain memorial meeting (November 30, 1910), where the few whowere left of his old companions told over quaint and tender memories,George Cable recalled their reading days together and told of MarkTwain's conscientious effort to do his best, to be worthy of himself,regardless of all other concerns. He told how when they had beentraveling for a while Clemens seemed to realize that he was only givingthe audience nonsense; making them laugh at trivialities which they wouldforget before they had left the entertainment hall. Cable said that upto that time he had supposed Clemens's chief thought was theentertainment of the moment, and that if the audience laughed he wassatisfied. He told how he had sat in the wings, waiting his turn, andheard the tides of laughter gather and roll forward and break against thefootlights, time and time again, and how he had believed his colleague tobe glorying in that triumph. What was his surprise, then, on the way tothe hotel in the carriage, when Clemens groaned and seemed writhing inspirit and said:

"Oh, Cable, I am demeaning myself. I am allowing myself to be a merebuffoon. It's ghastly. I can't endure it any longer."

Cable added that all that night and the next day Mark Twain devotedhimself to the study and rehearsal of selections which were justified notonly as humor, but as literature and art.

A good many interesting and amusing things would happen on such a tour. Many of these are entirely forgotten, of course, but of others certainmemoranda have been preserved. Grover Cleveland had been elected whenthey set out on their travels, but was still holding his position inAlbany as Governor of New York. When they reached Albany Cable andClemens decided to call on him. They drove to the Capitol and were showninto the Governor's private office. Cleveland made them welcome, and,after greetings, said to Clemens:

"Mr. Clemens, I was a fellow-citizen of yours in Buffalo a good manymonths some years ago, but you never called on me then. How do youexplain this?"

Clemens said: "Oh, that is very simple to answer, your Excellency. InBuffalo you were a sheriff. I kept away from the sheriff as much aspossible, but you're Governor now, and on the way to the Presidency. It's worth while coming to see you."

Clemens meantime had been resting, half sitting, on the corner of theExecutive desk. He leaned back a little, and suddenly about a dozenyoung men opened various doors, filed in and stood at attention, as ifwaiting for orders.

No one spoke for a moment; then the Governor said to this collection ofattendants:

"You are dismissed, young gentlemen. Your services are not required. Mr. Clemens is sitting on the bells."

In Buffalo, when Clemens appeared on the stage, he leisurely consideredthe audience for a moment; then he said:

"I miss a good many faces. They have gone--gone to the tomb, to thegallows, or to the White House. All of us are entitled to at least oneof these distinctions, and it behooves us to be wise and prepare forall."

On Thanksgiving Eve the readers were in Morristown, New Jersey, wherethey were entertained by Thomas Nast. The cartoonist prepared a quietsupper for them and they remained overnight in the Nast home. They wereto leave next morning by an early train, and Mrs. Nast had agreed to seethat they were up in due season. When she woke next morning there seemeda strange silence in the house and she grew suspicious. Going to theservants' room, she found them sleeping soundly. The alarm-clock in theback hall had stopped at about the hour the guests retired. The studioclock was also found stopped; in fact, every timepiece on the premiseshad retired from business. Clemens had found that the clocks interferedwith his getting to sleep, and he had quieted them regardless of earlytrains and reading engagements. On being accused of duplicity he said:

"Well, those clocks were all overworked, anyway. They will feel muchbetter for a night's rest."

A few days later Nast sent him a caricature drawing--a picture whichshowed Mark Twain getting rid of the offending clocks.

At Christmas-time they took a fortnight's holiday and Clemens went hometo Hartford. A surprise was awaiting him there. Mrs. Clemens had madean adaptation of 'The Prince and the Pauper' play, and the children ofthe neighborhood had prepared a presentation of it for his specialdelectation. He knew, on his arrival home, that something mysterious wasin progress, for certain rooms were forbidden him; but he had no inklingof their plan until just before the performance--when he was led acrossthe grounds to George Warner's home, into the large room there where itwas to be given, and placed in a seat directly in front of the stage.

Gerhardt had painted the drop-curtain, and assisted in the generalconstruction of scenery and effects. The result was really imposing; butpresently, when the curtain rose and the guest of honor realized what itwas all about, and what they had undertaken for his pleasure, he wasdeeply moved and supremely gratified.

There was but one hitch in the performance. There is a place where thePrince says, "Fathers be alike, mayhap; mine hath not a doll's temper."

This was Susy's part, and as she said it the audience did not fail toremember its literal appropriateness. There was a moment's silence, thena titter, followed by a roar of laughter, in which everybody but thelittle actors joined. They did not see the humor and were disturbed andgrieved. Curiously enough, Mrs Clemens herself, in arranging and castingthe play, had not considered the possibility of this effect. The partswere all daintily played. The children wore their assumed personalitiesas if native to them. Daisy Warner played the part of Tom Canty, ClaraClemens was Lady Jane Grey.

It was only the beginning of The Prince and the Pauper productions. Theplay was repeated, Clemens assisting, adding to the parts, and himselfplaying the role of Miles Hendon. In her childish biography Susy says:

Papa had only three days to learn the part in, but still we were all sure that he could do it. The scene that he acted in was the scene between Miles Hendon and the Prince, the "Prithee, pour the water" scene. I was the Prince and papa and I rehearsed together two or three times a day for the three days before the appointed evening. Papa acted his part beautifully, and he added to the scene, making it a good deal longer. He was inexpressibly funny, with his great slouch hat and gait----oh such a gait! Papa made the Miles Hendon scene a splendid success and every one was delighted with the scene, and papa too. We had great fun with our "Prince and Pauper," and I think we none of us shall forget how immensely funny papa was in it. He certainly could have been an actor as well as an author.

The holidays over, Cable and Clemens were off on the circuit again. AtRochester an incident happened which led to the writing of one of MarkTwain's important books, 'A Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur's Court'. Clemens and Cable had wandered into a book-store for the purpose offinding something to read. Pulling over some volumes on one of thetables, Clemens happened to pick up a little green, cloth-bound book, andafter looking at the title turned the pages rather curiously and withincreasing interest.

"Cable," he said, "do you know anything about this book, the Arthurianlegends of Sir Thomas Malory, Morte Arthure?"

Cable answered: "Mark, that is one of the most beautiful books in theworld. Let me buy it for you. You will love it more than any book youever read."

So Clemens came to know the old chronicler's version of the rare RoundTable legends, and from that first acquaintance with them to the lastdays of his life seldom let the book go far from him. He read and rereadthose quaint, stately tales and reverenced their beauty, while fairlyreveling in the absurdities of that ancient day. Sir Ector's lament heregarded as one of the most simply beautiful pieces of writing in theEnglish tongue, and some of the combats and quests as the most ridiculousabsurdities in romance. Presently he conceived the idea of linking thatday, with its customs, costumes, and abuses, with the progress of thepresent, or carrying back into that age of magicians and armor andsuperstition and cruelties a brisk American of progressive ideas whowould institute reforms. His note-book began to be filled with memorandaof situations and possibilities for the tale he had in mind. These werevague, unformed fancies as yet, and it would be a long time before thestory would become a fact. This was the first entry:

Dream of being a knight-errant in armor in the Middle Ages. Have the notions and habits, though, of the present day mixed with the necessities of that. No pockets in the armor. No way to manage certain requirements of nature. Can't scratch. Cold in the head and can't blow. Can't get a handkerchief; can't use iron sleeve; iron gets red-hot in the sun; leaks in the rain; gets white with frost and freezes me solid in winter; makes disagreeable clatter when I enter church. Can't dress or undress myself. Always getting struck by lightning. Fall down and can't get up.

Twenty-one years later, discussing the genesis of the story, he said:

"As I read those quaint and curious old legends I suppose I naturallycontrasted those days with ours, and it made me curious to fancy whatmight be the picturesque result if we could dump the nineteenth centurydown into the sixth century and observe the consequences."

The reading tour continued during the first two months of the new yearand carried them as far west as Chicago. They read in Hannibal andKeokuk, and Clemens spent a day in the latter place with his mother, nowliving with Orion, brisk and active for her years and with her old-timeforce of character. Mark Twain, arranging for her Keokuk residence, hadwritten:

Ma wants to board with you, and pay her board. She will pay you $20 a month (she wouldn't pay a cent more in heaven; she is obstinate on this point), and as long as she remains with you and is content I will add $25 a month to the sum Perkins already sends you.

Jane Clemens attended the Keokuk reading, and later, at home, when herchildren asked her if she could still dance, she rose, and at eighty-onetripped as lightly as a girl. It was the last time that Mark Twain eversaw his mother in the health and vigor which had been always so much apart of her personality.

Clemens saw another relative on that trip; in St. Louis, James Lampton,the original of Colonel Sellers, called.

He was become old and white-headed, but he entered to me in the same oldbreezy way of his earlier life, and he was all there, yet--not a detailwanting: the happy light in his eye, the abounding hope in his heart, thepersuasive tongue, the miracle-breeding imagination--they were all there;and before I could turn around he was polishing up his Aladdin's lamp andflashing the secret riches of the world before me. I said to myself:"I did not overdraw him by a shade, I set him down as he was; and he isthe same man to-day. Cable will recognize him."

Clemens opened the door into Cable's room and allowed the golden dream-talk to float in. It was of a "small venture" which the caller hadundertaken through his son.

"Only a little thing--a, mere trifle--a bagatelle. I suppose there's acouple of millions in it, possibly three, but not more, I think; still,for a boy, you know----"

It was the same old Cousin Jim. Later, when he had royally accepted sometickets for the reading and bowed his exit, Cable put his head in at thedoor.

"That was Colonel Sellers," he said.

CLIII

HUCK FINN COMES INTO HIS OWN

In the December Century (1884) appeared a chapter from 'The Adventures ofHuckleberry Finn', "The Grangerford-Shepherdson Feud," a piece of writingwhich Edmund Clarence Stederian, Brander Matthews, and others promptlyranked as among Mark Twain's very best; when this was followed, in theJanuary number, by "King Sollermun," a chapter which in its way delightedquite as many readers, the success of the new book was accounted certain.--[Stedman, writing to Clemens of this instalment, said: "To my mind itis not only the most finished and condensed thing you have done. but asdramatic and powerful an episode as I know in modern literature."]

'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn' was officially published in Englandand America in December, 1884, but the book was not in the canvassers'hands for delivery until February. By this time the orders wereapproximately for forty thousand copies, a number which had increased to fifty thousand a few weeks later. Webster's first publication venturewas in the nature of a triumph. Clemens wrote to him March 16th:

"Your news is splendid. Huck certainly is a success."

He felt that he had demonstrated his capacity as a general director andWebster had proved his efficiency as an executive. He had no furtherneed of an outside publisher.

The story of Huck Finn will probably stand as the best of Mark Twain'spurely fictional writings. A sequel to Tom Sawyer, it is greater thanits predecessor; greater artistically, though perhaps with less immediateinterest for the juvenile reader. In fact, the books are so differentthat they are not to be compared--wherein lies the success of the laterone. Sequels are dangerous things when the story is continuous, but inHuckleberry Finn the story is a new one, wholly different in environment,atmosphere, purpose, character, everything. The tale of Huck and NiggerJim drifting down the mighty river on a raft, cross-secting the variousprimitive aspects of human existence, constitutes one of the mostimpressive examples of picaresque fiction in any language. It has beenranked greater than Gil Blas, greater even than Don Quixote; certainly itis more convincing, more human, than either of these tales. Robert LouisStevenson once wrote, "It is a book I have read four times, and am quiteready to begin again to-morrow."

It is by no means a flawless book, though its defects are trivial enough. The illusion of Huck as narrator fails the least bit here and there; the"four dialects" are not always maintained; the occasional touch of broadburlesque detracts from the tale's reality. We are inclined to resentthis. We never wish to feel that Huck is anything but a real character. We want him always the Huck who was willing to go to hell if necessary,rather than sacrifice Nigger Jim; the Huck who watched the river throughlong nights, and, without caring to explain why, felt his soul go out tothe sunrise.

Two or three days and nights went by; I reckon I might say they swum by, they slid along so quiet and smooth and lovely. Here is the way we put in the time. It was a monstrous big river down there-- sometimes a mile and a half wide; we run nights and laid up and hid daytimes; soon as the night was most gone we stopped navigating and tied up--nearly always in the dead water under a towhead; and then cut young cottonwoods and willows and hid the raft with them. Then we set out the lines. Next we slid into the river and had a swim, so as to freshen up and cool off; then we set down on the sandy bottom where the water was about knee deep, and watched the daylight come. Not a sound anywheres--perfectly still--just like the whole world was asleep, only sometimes the bullfrogs a-cluttering, maybe. The first thing to see, looking away over the water, was a kind of dull line--that was the woods on t'other side, you couldn't make nothing else out; then a pale place in the sky; then more paleness, spreading around; then the river softened up, away off, and warn't black anymore, but gray; you could see little dark spots drifting along, ever so far away--trading scows, and such things; and long black streaks--rafts; sometimes you could hear a sweep screaking; or jumbled up voices, it was so still, and sounds come so far; and by- and-by you could see a streak on the water which you know by the look of the streak that there's a snag there in a swift current which breaks on it and makes that streak look that way; and you see the mist curl up off the water, and the east reddens up, and the river, and you make out a log-cabin in the edge of the woods, away on the bank on t'other side of the river, being a wood-yard, likely, and piled by them cheats so you can throw a dog through it anywheres; then the nice breeze springs up, and comes fanning you over there, so cool and fresh, and sweet to smell, on account of the woods and the flowers.... And next you've got the full day, and everything smiling in the sun, and the song-birds just going it!

This is the Huck we want, and this is the Huck we usually have, and thatthe world has long been thankful for.

Take the story as a whole, it is a succession of startling and uniquepictures. The cabin in the swamp which Huck and his father used togetherin their weird, ghastly relationship; the night adventure with Jim on thewrecked steamboat; Huck's night among the towheads; the Grangerford-Shepherdson battle; the killing of Boggs--to name a few of the many vividpresentations--these are of no time or literary fashion and will neverlose their flavor nor their freshness so long as humanity itself does notchange. The terse, unadorned Grangerford-Shepherdson episode--built outof the Darnell--Watson feuds--[See Life on the Mississippi, chap. xxvi. Mark Twain himself, as a cub pilot, came near witnessing the battle hedescribes.]--is simply classic in its vivid casualness, and the same maybe said of almost every incident on that long river-drift; but this isthe strength, the very essence of picaresque narrative. It is the waythings happen in reality; and the quiet, unexcited frame of mind in whichHuck is prompted to set them down would seem to be the last word inliterary art. To Huck, apparently, the killing of Boggs and ColonelSherburn's defiance of the mob are of about the same historicalimportance as any other incidents of the day's travel. When ColonelSherburn threw his shotgun across his arm and bade the crowd disperseHuck says:

The crowd washed back sudden, and then broke all apart and went tearing off every which way, and Buck Harkness he heeled it after them, looking tolerable cheap. I could a staid if I'd a wanted to, but I didn't want to.

I went to the circus, and loafed around the back side till the watchman went by, and then dived in under the tent.

That is all. No reflections, no hysterics; a murder and a mob dispersed,all without a single moral comment. And when the Shepherdsons had gotdone killing the Grangerfords, and Huck had tugged the two bodies ashoreand covered Buck Grangerford's face with a handkerchief, crying a littlebecause Buck had been good to him, he spent no time in sentimentalreflection or sermonizing, but promptly hunted up Jim and the raft andsat down to a meal of corn-dodgers, buttermilk, pork and cabbage, andgreens:

There ain't nothing in the world so good, when it is cooked right; and while I eat my supper we talked, and had a good time. I was powerful glad to get away from the feuds, and so was Jim to get away from the swamp. We said there warn't no home like a raft, after all. Other places do seem so cramped up and smothery, but a raft don't; you feel mighty free and easy and comfortable on a raft.

It was Huck Finn's morality that caused the book to be excluded from theConcord Library, and from other libraries here and there at a later day. The orthodox mental attitude of certain directors of juvenile literaturecould not condone Huck's looseness in the matter of statement andproperty rights, and in spite of New England traditions, Massachusettslibrarians did not take any too kindly to his uttered principle that,after thinking it over and taking due thought on the deadly sin ofabolition, he had decided that he'd go to hell rather than give Jim overto slavery. Poor vagrant Ben Blankenship, hiding his runaway negro in anIllinois swamp, could not dream that his humanity would one day supplythe moral episode of an immortal book.

Able critics have declared that the psychology of Huck Finn is the book'slarge feature: Huck's moral point of view--the struggle between his heartand his conscience concerning the sin of Jim's concealment, and his finaldecision of self-sacrifice. Time may show that as an epic of the river,the picture of a vanished day, it will rank even greater. The problemsof conscience we have always with us, but periods once passed are goneforever. Certainly Huck's loyalty to that lovely soul Nigger Jim wasbeautiful, though after all it may not have been so hard for Huck, whocould be loyal to anything. Huck was loyal to his father, loyal to TomSawyer of course, loyal even to those two river tramps and frauds, theKing and the Duke, for whom he lied prodigiously, only weakening when anew and livelier loyalty came into view--loyalty to Mary Wilks.

The King and the Duke, by the way, are not elsewhere matched in fiction. The Duke was patterned after a journeyman-printer Clemens had known inVirginia City, but the King was created out of refuse from the wholehuman family--"all tears and flapdoodle," the very ultimate of disreputeand hypocrisy--so perfect a specimen that one must admire, almost love,him. "Hain't we all the fools in town on our side? and ain't that a bigenough majority in any town?" he asks in a critical moment--a remarkwhich stamps him as a philosopher of classic rank. We are full of pityat last when this pair of rapscallions ride out of the history on a rail,and feel some of Huck's inclusive loyalty and all the sorrowful truth ofhis comment: "Human beings can be awful cruel to one another."

The "poor old king" Huck calls him, and confesses how he felt "ornery andhumble and to blame, somehow," for the old scamp's misfortunes. "Aperson's conscience ain't got no sense," he says, and Huck is never morereal to us, or more lovable, than in that moment. Huck is what he isbecause, being made so, he cannot well be otherwise. He is a boythroughout--such a boy as Mark Twain had known and in some degree hadbeen. One may pettily pick a flaw here and there in the tale'sconstruction if so minded, but the moral character of Huck himself is notopen to criticism. And indeed any criticism of this the greatest of MarkTwain's tales of modern life would be as the mere scratching of thegranite of an imperishable structure. Huck Finn is a monument that nopuny pecking will destroy. It is built of indestructible blocks of humannature; and if the blocks do not always fit, and the ornaments do notalways agree, we need not fear. Time will blur the incongruities andmoss over the mistakes. The edifice will grow more beautiful with theyears.

CLIV

THE MEMOIRS OF GENERAL GRANT

The success of Huck Finn, though sufficiently important in itself,prepared the way for a publishing venture by the side of which itdwindled to small proportions. One night (it was early in November,1884), when Cable and Clemens had finished a reading at Chickering Hall,Clemens, coming out into the wet blackness, happened to hear RichardWatson Gilder's voice say to some unseen companion:

"Do you know General Grant has actually determined to write his memoirsand publish them. He has said so to-day, in so many words."

Of course Clemens was immediately interested. It was the thing he hadproposed to Grant some three years previously, during his call that daywith Howells concerning the Toronto consulship.

With Mrs. Clemens, he promptly overtook Gilder and accompanied him to hishouse, where they discussed the matter in its various particulars. Gilder said that the Century Editors had endeavored to get Grant tocontribute to their war series, but that not until his financialdisaster, as a member of the firm of Grant & Ward, had he been willing toconsider the matter. He said that Grant now welcomed the idea ofcontributing three papers to the series, and that the promised payment offive hundred dollars each for these articles had gladdened his heart andrelieved him of immediate anxiety.--[Somewhat later the Century Company,voluntarily, added liberally to this sum.]

Gilder added that General Grant seemed now determined to continue hiswork until he had completed a book, though this at present was only aprospect.

Clemens was in the habit of calling on Grant, now and then, to smoke acigar with him, and he dropped in next morning to find out just how farthe book idea had developed, and what were the plans of publication. Hefound the General and his son, Colonel Fred Grant, discussing somememoranda, which turned out to be a proposition from the Century Companyfor the book publication of his memoirs. Clemens asked to be allowed tolook over the proposed terms, and when he had done so he said:

"General, it is clear that the Century people do not realize theimportance--the commercial magnitude of your book. It is not strangethat this is true, for they are comparatively new publishers and have hadlittle or no experience with books of this class. The terms they proposeindicate that they expect to sell five, possibly ten thousand copies. Abook from your hand, telling the story of your life and battles, shouldsell not less than a quarter of a million, perhaps twice that sum. Itshould be sold only by subscription, and you are entitled to double theroyalty here proposed. I do not believe it is to your interest toconclude this contract without careful thought and investigation. Writeto the American Publishing Company at Hartford and see what they will dofor you."

But Grant demurred. He said that, while no arrangements had been madewith the Century Company, he thought it only fair and right that theyshould have the book on reasonable terms; certainly on terms no greater than he could obtain elsewhere. He said that, all things being equal,the book ought to go to the man who had first suggested it to him.

Clemens spoke up: "General, if that is so, it belongs to me."

Grant did not understand until Clemens recalled to him how he had urgedhim, in that former time, to write his memoirs; had pleaded with him,agreeing to superintend the book's publication. Then he said:

"General, I am publishing my own book, and by the time yours is ready itis quite possible that I shall have the best equipped subscriptionestablishment in the country. If you will place your book with my firm--and I feel that I have at least an equal right in the consideration--Iwill pay you twenty per cent. of the list price, or, if you prefer, Iwill give you seventy per cent. of the net returns and I will pay alloffice expenses out of my thirty per cent."

General Grant was really grieved at this proposal. It seemed to himthat here was a man who was offering to bankrupt himself out of purephilanthropy--a thing not to be permitted. He intimated that he hadasked the Century Company president, Roswell Smith, a careful-headedbusiness man, if he thought his book would pay as well as Sherman's,which the Scribners had published at a profit to Sherman of twenty-fivethousand dollars, and that Smith had been unwilling to guarantee thatamount to the author.--[Mark Twain's note-book, under date of March,1885, contains this memorandum: "Roswell Smith said to me: 'I'm glad yougot the book, Mr. Clemens; glad there was somebody with courage enough totake it, under the circumstances. What do you think the General wantedto require of me?'

"'He wanted me to insure a sale of twenty-five thousand sets of his book. I wouldn't risk such a guarantee on any book that was ever published.'"

Yet Roswell Smith, not so many years later, had so far enlarged his viewsof subscription publishing that he fearlessly and successfully invested amillion dollars or more in a dictionary, regardless of the fact that themarket was already thought to be supplied.]

Clemens said:

"General, I have my check-book with me. I will draw you a check now fortwenty-five thousand dollars for the first volume of your memoirs, andwill add a like amount for each volume you may write as an advanceroyalty payment, and your royalties will continue right along when thisamount has been reached."

Colonel Fred Grant now joined in urging that matters be delayed, at leastuntil more careful inquiry concerning the possibilities of publishingcould be made.

Clemens left then, and set out on his trip with Cable, turning the wholematter over to Webster and Colonel Fred for settlement. Meantime, theword that General Grant was writing his memoirs got into the newspapersand various publishing propositions came to him. In the end the Generalsent over to Philadelphia for his old friend, George W. Childs, and laidthe whole matter before him. Childs said later it was plain that GeneralGrant, on the score of friendship, if for no other reason, distinctlywished to give the book to Mark Twain. It seemed not to be a question ofhow much money he would make, but of personal feeling entirely. Webster's complete success with Huck Finn being now demonstrated, ColonelFred Grant agreed that he believed Clemens and Webster could handle thebook as profitably as anybody; and after investigation Childs was of thesame opinion. The decision was that the firm of Charles L. Webster & Co. should have the book, and arrangements for drawing the contract weremade.

General Grant, however, was still somewhat uneasy as to the terms.He thought he was taking an unfair advantage in receiving so large aproportion of the profits. He wrote to Clemens, asking him which of histwo propositions--the twenty per cent. gross-royalty or the seventy percent. of the net profit--would be the best all around. Clemens sentWebster to tell him that he believed the simplest, as well as the mostprofitable for the author, would be the twenty per cent. arrangement. Whereupon Grant replied that he would take the alternative; as in thatcase, if the book were a failure, and there were no profits, Clemenswould not be obliged to pay him anything. He could not consent to thethought of receiving twenty per cent. on a book published at a loss.

Meantime, Grant had developed a serious illness. The humiliation of hisbusiness failure had undermined his health. The papers announced hismalady as cancer of the tongue. In a memorandum which Clemens made,February 26, 1885, he states that on the 21st he called at the Granthome, 3 East 66th Street, and was astonished to see how thin and weak theGeneral looked. He was astonished because the newspaper, in a secondreport, had said the threatening symptoms had disappeared, that thecancer alarm was a false one.

I took for granted the report, and said I had been glad to see that news. He smiled and said, "Yes--if it had only been true."

One of the physicians was present, and he startled me by saying the General's condition was the opposite of encouraging.

Then the talk drifted to business, and the General presently said: "I mean you shall have the book--I have about made up my mind to that--but I wish to write to Mr. Roswell Smith first, and tell him I have so decided. I think this is due him."

From the beginning the General has shown a fine delicacy toward those people--a delicacy which was native to the character of the man who put into the Appomattox terms of surrender the words, "Officers may retain their side-arms," to save General Lee the humiliation of giving up his sword. [Note-book.]

The physician present was Dr. Douglas, and upon Clemens assuming that theGeneral's trouble was probably due to smoking, also that it was a warningto those who smoked to excess, himself included, Dr. Douglas said thatGeneral Grant's affliction could not be attributed altogether to smoking,but far more to his distress of mind, his year-long depression of spirit,the grief of his financial disaster. Dr. Douglas's remark startedGeneral Grant upon the subject of his connection with Ward, which hediscussed with great freedom and apparent relief of mind. Never at anytime did he betray any resentment toward Ward, but characterized him asone might an offending child. He spoke as a man who has been deeplywronged and humiliated and betrayed, but without a venomous expression orone with revengeful nature. Clemens confessed in his notes that all thetime he himself was "inwardly boiling--scalping Ward--flaying him alive--breaking him on the wheel--pounding him to a jelly."

While he was talking Colonel Grant said:

"Father is letting you see that the Grant family are a pack of fools, Mr.Clemens."

The General objected to this statement. He said that the facts could beproduced which would show that when Ward laid siege to a man he waspretty certain to turn out to be a fool; as much of a fool as any of theGrant family. He said that nobody could call the president of the ErieRailroad a fool, yet Ward had beguiled him of eight hundred thousanddollars, robbed him of every cent of it.

He cited another man that no one could call a fool who had invested inWard to the extent of half a million. He went on to recall many suchcases. He told of one man who had come to the office on the eve ofdeparture for Europe and handed Ward a check for fifty thousand dollars,saying:

"I have no use for it at present. See what you can do with it for me." By and by this investor, returning from Europe, dropped in and said:

"Well, did anything happen?"

Ward indifferently turned to his private ledger, consulted it, then drewa check for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and handed it over,with the casual remark:

"Well, yes, something happened; not much yet--a little too soon."

The man stared at the check, then thrust it back into Ward's hand. "That's all right. It's plenty good enough for me. Set that hen again,"and left the place.

Of course Ward made no investments. His was the first playing on acolossal scale of the now worn-out "get rich quick" confidence game. Such dividends as were made came out of the principal. Ward was theNapoleon of that game, whether he invented it or not. Clemens agreedthat, as far as himself or any of his relatives were concerned, theywould undoubtedly have trusted Ward.

Colonel Grant followed him to the door when he left, and told him thatthe physicians feared his father might not live more than a few weekslonger, but that meantime he had been writing steadily, and that thefirst volume was complete and fully half the second. Three days laterthe formal contract was closed, and Webster & Co. promptly advanced. General Grant ten thousand dollars for imminent demands, a welcomearrangement, for Grant's debts and expenses were many, and his availableresources restricted to the Century payments for his articles.

Immediately the office of Webster & Co. was warm with affairs. Reporters were running hot-foot for news of the great contract by whichMark Twain was to publish the life of General Grant. No publishingenterprise of such vast moment had ever been undertaken, and nopublishing event, before or since, ever received the amount of newspapercomment. The names of General Grant and Mark Twain associated wouldcommand columns, whatever the event, and that Mark Twain was to becomethe publisher of Grant's own story of his battles was of unprecedentedimportance.

The partners were sufficiently occupied. Estimates and prices for vastquantities of paper were considered, all available presses werecontracted for, binderies were pledged exclusively for the Grant book. Clemens was boiling over with plans and suggestions for distribution. Webster was half wild with the tumult of the great campaign. Applications for agencies poured in.

In those days there were general subscription agencies which divided thecountry into districts, and the heads of these agencies Webster summonedto New York and laid down the law to them concerning the, new book. Itwas not a time for small dealings, and Webster rose to the occasion. Bythe time these men returned to their homes they had practically pledgedthemselves to a quarter of a million sets of the Grant Memoirs, and thisestimate they believed to be conservative.

Webster now moved into larger and more pretentious quarters. He took astore-room at 42 East 14th Street, Union Square, and surrounded himselfwith a capable force of assistants. He had become, all at once, the mostconspicuous publisher in the world.